Dagda On Savelli

In my last post, I mentioned that I’d pulled out my copy of Mary Savelli’s Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England. I’m currently having early period urges rather than later period ones, but sadly, early period food is less well-supported by convenient cookbooks! Thinking about earlier period food ends up being far more an exercise of book- and article-juggling. There is information on artifacts and technology; there are articles about archaeological remains. Odd words and phrases and references can require dictionaries and botanical texts. I usually end up with an unwieldy and tottering pile of texts beside me, and another pile behind me, and no easy way to jump back and forth. Or I rely on oddments stored in a disorganized memory, and hope I think to double-check more dubious points when I next have a convenient half-moment.
So, no, although I wish heartily, I don’t expect to be able to pull a handy little early period cookery book off my shelf.

But sometimes even looking at and thinking about something with potential flaws and weaknesses can be enlightening. And I wanted to look at recipes, rather than read and have to process a lot of hard data. I just wanted to cook something, and until I went off to a further town for wheat grains, I couldn’t re-start my Jacqui Wood experiments.

So, the book in question was Mary Savelli’s Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England.
And since I’m mentioning Mary Savelli’s book here, perhaps I will repost a review/blog-post I’d once rambled out on my other blog. And perhaps I can update it with some further comments…


**Originally posted June 25, 2006.
Part of my disappointment with it is my own fault. I foolishly, and without any possible reason, allowed myself to hope that it would be, could be a resource for early period cookery the way Le Menagier de Paris or Le Viandier de Taillevant are for later periods.

I was even willing to accept a conjectural approach if I could see the roots for the result, the way you can in books like Pleyn Delit, where the period recipe is given alongside the redacted one suggested by the authors. However, I feel that instead we’ve ended up with a publication that appears to owe much to conjecture, little to archaeological evidence, or even logic, and is clothed with the perception of being the word on Anglo Saxon food.

I did a workshop with Mary Savelli a few years ago and got far more of the subtext from that session, than I did from the book. Apparently it was her publishers who suggested she write a cookbook, because cookbooks sell, and while it wasn’t something she was particularly familiar with, she thought she’d see how she could translate her research into Anglo-Saxon period leech books into a cookbook.

But it is the process, from leech book to her ideas of a recipe that are more interesting and more useful, and unfortunately, are not much included in this publication. Ever since getting this book though, I’ve had urges to have some real conversations about some of her ideas. Because I know that since she’s based them on period information, even if it was medicinal rather than culinary, I feel there’s value in here. I just can’t think that it’s ‘face value’. And it may be that more could come from some discussion and debate than from even just reading or discarding the recipes.

But, living rurally, and not being tied in anymore to a network of like-minded people for pursuing these discussions, or because the people who might want to participate in the chat, aren’t as accessible by email these days, I thought I’d just have that little discussion out loud, in here by myself. (Yes, signs of insanity, I'm sure…)
Though if anyone of my audience of two or three or accidental wanderers-by want to rebut, or offer additional thoughts, feel free.

Let’s pick one to start with. In fact, let’s start with the one she talked about in her workshop:
“Wyrtig Briw (Vegetable Soup)”

[If nothing else, knowing if these would really be the names of such things, and whether that’s just straight translation into Old English of whatever dialect, would be nice to know. Having names, even the simplest of words to describe foods, in the tongue of the day, is great. ~v.]
[Update Jan/2011: Not sure why I didn’t do some of this further cross-referencing the first time around because I already owned the books, but…Ann Hagen, in her A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food; Processing and Consumption says:
“Broð was the Old English term for broth or soup, which might be enriched with milk or butter.” And “If broþ was retained to indicate a thin liquid, the term which supplanted it in the meant “pottage”, is briw.”

Anthimus tells us “barley soup is, as anyone knows who can make it, good for healthy people and those suffering from fever.” This soup is based on a brew for lung disease, calling for sweet-flag, radish, carrot and barley meal. Cress is added to take the place of one of the other leafy herbs in the original, lesser celedine, as it has a similar texture and was also used by the Anglo-Saxons.

40g (1 ½ oz; ½ cup barley*
440 ml (16 fl. oz, 2 cups) water*
770 ml (28 fl. oz, 3 ½ cups vegetable broth*
3 radishes, chopped (1/8 to ¼ cup)*
2 Tablespoons general purpose vegetable oil*
3 carrots, diced (2 cups)*
2 Tablespoons cress, chopped*
½ teaspoon salt*
½ teaspoon ground black pepper*
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon*

* 1. Soak the barley in 2 cups of water for four hours. Drain out the water and put the barley in a large saucepan. Add the broth and bring the water to a boil. Cover the pan with a lid; simmer for 45 minutes.
* 2. Sauté the radishes in oil in a frying pan. Add the radishes, cress, carrots and seasoning to the barley.
* 3. Return the soup to a boil then reduce the heat. Cover the pan with a lid; let the soup simmer for 10 minutes or until the barley is tender.


So…. That’s her recipe. At the very least it fills me with questions. In another kind of culinary book, where there was an inclusion of an extant receipt, this would be the author’s redaction. I would be able to look back and forth and compare the two, see where the author had made changes, and either be told, or try to intuit, why, and make a decision about the differences, and the suggestions of process.

Because there isn’t an actual Anglo Saxon recipe to compare against, the mind has to go in a lot more circles. (Well, my mind does!)

Anthimus tells us about barley soup. Well, there. That’s a good start.

[Anthimus. De obseruatione ciborum (On the Observance of Food) Translated and edited by Mark Grant. Totnes, Devonshire: Prospect Books, 1996.]

Now her bibliography doesn’t give me a clue about exactly when this is from. Oh, drat. Turns out he’s a sixth century Byzantine Greek, and his treatise on food reflects Byzantine and Frankish tastes. Durn. I was hoping it was one of the Anglo-Saxon writers. This changes it a bit. I was thinking we at least had proof that Anglo-Saxons ate barley soup, right from a local period source. Oh well… Let’s steam along.
[Update Jan/2011: Handily, Ann Hagen does suggest that the Anglo-Saxons used barley in their soups, mentioning the use of barley meal, as well as suggesting the use of whole grains.]

If nothing else, soups are likely. They had pots. We have archaeological evidence. They had barley. Barley needs cooking to soften it. So barley soup isn’t a real stretch.

Her “brew for lung disease” is from Bald’s Leechbook, and unfortunately, try as I might, I can’t pin down a real date on this. However, there are mentions of it in the context of Anglo-Saxon leech books and health handbooks, so that’s hopeful.
And mind you, while what is considered medicine may not necessarily be considered food, it at least tells us some items they had access to. And certainly radish, carrot and barley also do duty as foodstuffs.

I haven’t been able to track down too much info about either ‘sweet-flag’ or ‘lesser celedine’. At least, under those names. Sweet-flag might be Acorus calamus, or Calamus Root, and while I can find a tiny bit of medicinal info about that, it wasn’t much, and only one reference that suggested it as a febrifuge. But since that might be a strictly medicinal plant, I wasn’t too worried. I did find mention of its use as a substitute for cinnamon or ginger. And I also have a vague memory that Mary Savelli said that was why she had included cinnamon in the recipe.

Mind you, if it was more a medicinal herb than a culinary one, that might be an interesting choice to make, but maybe not the most logical.

Lesser Celedine might be Chelidonium minus, which is the same as Lesser Celandine. I did find some mention that in Sweden it was used as a salad herb, but the reviews of its taste weren’t too glowing. Again, perhaps the lesser celedine is a medicinal herb rather than a potherb, but I see no reason to not assume that any potherbs in common use might not be possible for this recipe. Cress is as likely as any other.
[Update Jan/2011: I’m still not tracking down much use of the name “lesser celedine” except as a fairly random mention. It might perhaps be a spelling error, or a minimally used alternative name. However, today when I thought to try following up on the Anglo Saxon common name listed by Savelli in the appendices, “wenwyrt”, I have indeed been led to references defining it as Ranunculus ficaria, or Lesser Celandine. Most of its medicinal uses are topical. One article suggested: “Can also be consumed inside carefully as can be poisonous if not careful.” A somewhat whimsical phrasing suggesting it might not make the best culinary herb?]

I wonder about the suggestion to soak the barley. Yes, this would soften it and shorten the cooking time, but my experience in cooking over a fire in a cauldron, is that it’s a ‘leisurely’ process anyway. It would be just as simple to add the barley dry, early on in the making. However, in a redaction for use in a modern kitchen, perhaps it makes sense.

Likewise, maybe, the substitution of vegetable broth, for a flavour base that would develop naturally in the cooking process. Now, I have to wonder what would make a likely combination of ingredients for that base. Since, even in my modern kitchen, I’d be more likely to make this soup that way.
Onions? I’d imagine some form of onions. Maybe wild leeks, wild garlic. Perhaps charnock or wild mustard, dill, wild celery, or sorrel. And nettles, perhaps.

She suggests sautéing the radishes in oil in a pan. My instincts, based on cooking with period implements, suggest that if something like this were really done, it would only be in the kitchens of the rich, best outfitted with all the “mod cons”!
If cooking over a small firepit in the floor of a simple house, then a cauldron hanging from the rafters is a likely object. Using a smaller pan or griddle, just to sauté some radishes to then include in soup, seems a waste of activity. And a metal pan would have been a luxury item if the common household already contained a metal cauldron (hweras or an cetel). Such a pan is more likely to have been used for bread or fried dishes.
I imagine it would be more likely that the carrots and radishes would simply be added as the vegetable broth was developing, to further enhance the flavour. And any tender greens added closer to the end.

But even that may be a modern perception. It’s very hard to turn off all one’s personal sensibilities, or to know if or when you’ve succeeded!

I find that one of the most helpful things in giving me a better sense of how an early culture might have cooked, is to work with their technology. That gives me more of an understanding of what is easy, what makes sense, what is practical, and what, farfetched. And then, if I’m drawing from a more appropriate list of ingredients, there is more chance that my final product may have a better chance of being something that wouldn’t be entirely unrecognizable in period.

So, this recipe from Savelli’s book may not be as improbable as others; representing more, perhaps, the approach that might be taken in a modern kitchen to produce a period-like dish. For myself, it led me to sit down and thumb through a handful of reference books to answer (or try to answer) some questions that it raised.

Though I still keep hoping that someday someone unearths and translates some lovely volume of early period cookery!

~vandy

[Update Jan/2011: There is a very intelligent review of this book by Dr. David D. Friedman at this link: http://home.pcisys.net/~mem/savelli.html